José Otero Dr. Michael T. Williamson ENGL 864 24 June 2014 Love Poetry Response One would think that at this stage of my academic career that I would be able to provide a clear, succinct definition of “love poetry.” But I cannot. The first poem I really fell in love with would be classified by most as a love poem; it was “La Belle Dame Sans Merci” by John Keats. For me, the poem captured a feeling of overwhelming love and the subsequent deep sadness and yearning when that love is lost. It is also a lyric poem, a ballad, that has a beautiful and almost haunting quality to its sound and meter. So when I talk about love poetry, I am thinking of poetry that expresses feelings that are commonly held on the subject and expresses them in a manner where the sound quality matches or intensifies the content. Another example would be Robert Browning’s “Porphyria’s Lover.” Although this is about a speaker who kills his love, the intensity of emotion is there, and the sound quality and structure of the lines heightens the emotions felt by the speaker. From memory, I believe the first lines are as follows: “The rain set early in tonight / the sullen wind was soon awake / it tore the elm-tops down for spite / and did its worst to vex the lake / I listened with heart fit to break.” There is a choppiness to the lines that mimics the gusts of wind, the breaking trees, and the unstable emotional state the speaker is in. While these two examples show multiple emotions associated with love, I would guess that the average person would see love poetry as poetry that expresses how much one person loves another without any other emotions being explored. Looking at Hemans’ poetry, one might feel hard pressed to identify any of it as “love poetry” in the common sense. But for me, much of it is love poetry. “Gertrude, or Fidelity till Death” is a love poem because the driving force behind the actions taken in the poem are based on love. Gertrude endures the pain of watching her husband suffer and die, which suggests to me a strong emotional attachment. Her final reward is at the end when her husband is able to smile before he dies. But one might compare that to Constance Naden’s poem “The Sister of Mercy” where the speaker is the most in love when her patient is suffering. Once the patient recovers, he is no longer special to her: Almost I loved—but many valiant men These hands have tended, and shall tend again; And now thou art not fevered and distressed I hold thee nothing dearer than the rest. (17-20) The common assumption is that love is a permanent state and that there is only one true love for a person. The speaker in Naden’s poem, however, demonstrates a love that can be powerful, but that is also easily transferable. This certainly goes against conventional definitions of love. But as in “Gertrude,” there is a dedication and loyalty. But in this case, the loyalty is to the profession of giving care. We might take this idea of love being transferable or transient to EBB’s “Lady Geraldine’s Courtship.” The speaker falls in love with Lady Geraldine immediately and falls into the common belief that this type of extreme love is natural and universal: “Yet I could not choose but lover her. I was born to poet-uses, / To love all things set above me, all of good and all of fair” (29-30). This more conventional approach to love runs counter to Naden’s speaker who actually makes decisions about who she loves, for how long, and in what capacities. Actually, the speaker here is more akin to the speaker in “Porphyria’s Lover” than to the speaker in Naden’s poem. So these common assumptions about what love poetry is are expressed in plenty of poems, probably the ones that are most commonly anthologized.
Dr. Michael T. Williamson
ENGL 864
24 June 2014
Love Poetry Response
One would think that at this stage of my academic career that I would be able to provide a clear, succinct definition of “love poetry.” But I cannot. The first poem I really fell in love with would be classified by most as a love poem; it was “La Belle Dame Sans Merci” by John Keats. For me, the poem captured a feeling of overwhelming love and the subsequent deep sadness and yearning when that love is lost. It is also a lyric poem, a ballad, that has a beautiful and almost haunting quality to its sound and meter. So when I talk about love poetry, I am thinking of poetry that expresses feelings that are commonly held on the subject and expresses them in a manner where the sound quality matches or intensifies the content. Another example would be Robert Browning’s “Porphyria’s Lover.” Although this is about a speaker who kills his love, the intensity of emotion is there, and the sound quality and structure of the lines heightens the emotions felt by the speaker. From memory, I believe the first lines are as follows: “The rain set early in tonight / the sullen wind was soon awake / it tore the elm-tops down for spite / and did its worst to vex the lake / I listened with heart fit to break.” There is a choppiness to the lines that mimics the gusts of wind, the breaking trees, and the unstable emotional state the speaker is in. While these two examples show multiple emotions associated with love, I would guess that the average person would see love poetry as poetry that expresses how much one person loves another without any other emotions being explored.
Looking at Hemans’ poetry, one might feel hard pressed to identify any of it as “love poetry” in the common sense. But for me, much of it is love poetry. “Gertrude, or Fidelity till Death” is a love poem because the driving force behind the actions taken in the poem are based on love. Gertrude endures the pain of watching her husband suffer and die, which suggests to me a strong emotional attachment. Her final reward is at the end when her husband is able to smile before he dies. But one might compare that to Constance Naden’s poem “The Sister of Mercy” where the speaker is the most in love when her patient is suffering. Once the patient recovers, he is no longer special to her:
Almost I loved—but many valiant men
These hands have tended, and shall tend again;
And now thou art not fevered and distressed
I hold thee nothing dearer than the rest. (17-20)
The common assumption is that love is a permanent state and that there is only one true love for a person. The speaker in Naden’s poem, however, demonstrates a love that can be powerful, but that is also easily transferable. This certainly goes against conventional definitions of love. But as in “Gertrude,” there is a dedication and loyalty. But in this case, the loyalty is to the profession of giving care.
We might take this idea of love being transferable or transient to EBB’s “Lady Geraldine’s Courtship.” The speaker falls in love with Lady Geraldine immediately and falls into the common belief that this type of extreme love is natural and universal: “Yet I could not choose but lover her. I was born to poet-uses, / To love all things set above me, all of good and all of fair” (29-30). This more conventional approach to love runs counter to Naden’s speaker who actually makes decisions about who she loves, for how long, and in what capacities. Actually, the speaker here is more akin to the speaker in “Porphyria’s Lover” than to the speaker in Naden’s poem. So these common assumptions about what love poetry is are expressed in plenty of poems, probably the ones that are most commonly anthologized.